Authors: J. T. Brannan
‘My – !’
Cole choked on his own words, confusion and disbelief swimming through his head, threatening to overwhelm him.
‘My daughter?’ Cole finally managed, going to one knee, hand to her face. ‘But how – ?’
But it was too late; the girl had slipped into unconsciousness and the sound of sirens roared louder, followed by doors slamming, guns cocking.
Cole looked up to face the Tucson police department, dropped his weapon and raised his hands in surrender, mouth still open in wonder and bewilderment.
As the cops raced forward to arrest him, Cole knew only one thing; answers were going to have to wait.
4
Mark Cole waited patiently for his turn to pass through the metal detector in the White House foyer, comfortable in his tailored suit despite his recent injuries. He’d already placed his keys and his cell phone in the tray, and then he was walking through the magnetic archway, pulled to one side by a security guard for a quick once over with the portable wand.
He was clean, as he always was when he entered the White House. There was no threat here, and no need to carry weapons. Besides which, if he wanted to kill anyone, he was more than capable of doing so with his bare hands, a fact exercised many times by some of the very people that worked here.
His mind was still reeling from what he had learned back at the ranch. Could the girl have been his daughter?
The thought of a daughter –
any
daughter – dredged up painful, horrifying memories for him. It was still only a little more than two years ago that his entire family – his wife, son and daughter – had been slaughtered in front of him. He was starting to adjust to the loss now, but it was a long process and he was not yet fully healed – indeed, might never be, he realized.
He had only had two children – Ben and Amy, killed at the tender ages of just six and four. The girl in Tucson must have been at least sixteen, perhaps as old as twenty, though certainly no more.
So who was she?
Was she telling the truth? Was it even possible?
Cole had to admit that such a thing was always possible; during his time in the SEALs, he’d been involved with women all over the world.
The girl was of oriental appearance – perhaps Japanese, Cole thought – which should narrow it down somewhat; and somewhere in the back of Cole’s mind, if did just that, although he did his best to ignore what his subconscious was trying to tell him.
Cole had never even had time to confirm the girl’s name – after being hauled off to the Tucson jail cells, he’d been identified as the escaped convict Samuel Keatson. This identification – his cover story when infiltrating San Quentin – had set off alarm bells back at the Force One headquarters in DC, and a presidential order for his release was issued immediately, with no questions allowed.
An FBI vehicle – driven by men who had no idea who he was, and why they were driving him – turned up outside the police station as Cole descended the steps, to take him immediately to the airport where a private jet was being fuelled and readied to fly him to Washington.
Normally Cole just made his own way back – all the better to avoid suspicion – and Cole had known this meant that something heavy was going on.
He had still been trying to remember where he’d been sixteen to twenty years ago, what he’d been doing, when he’d seen the newspapers in the private lounge of the airport, the news on the television. He’d been out circulation for so long that he’d not even heard about what had been going on in China, and he instantly knew why Abrams had summoned him so urgently.
Reluctantly, he had driven the thoughts of the Japanese girl – his daughter? – that had helped him, then tried to kill him, and then been shot
by
him – out of his mind completely, his professional instincts taking over as he gathered up all the newspapers and magazines he could, taking them on board the private jet so that he could devour every article he could read about the Chinese situation.
The thoughts of the girl still nagged at him, pulling at his attention as his leather soled shoes click-clacked over the White House marble, but he was able to compartmentalize – she would just have to wait. She was in hospital anyway, under police guard, and wouldn’t be going anywhere for now.
As Cole passed through the corridors towards the West Wing, he noticed that the staff was even more thorough than normal; indeed, there was an air of unease in the place that only normally occurred at times of extreme threat to the United States. But Cole could understand that – a military coup in China was enough to worry even the most laidback observer.
An aide greeted him with a well-practiced smile. ‘Doctor Sandbourne,’ he said congenially, ‘how lovely to see you again. President Abrams is ready for you now, please follow me.’ Cole returned the smile and did as he was asked, following the aide towards the first floor Oval Office.
Cole had been here several times now as ‘Doctor Sandbourne’, an expert in international affairs working for the Paradigm Group, a new and influential Washington think tank. It was a role that explained his regular visits to the White House without raising too many eyebrows
.
The real reason for his meeting with Abrams was, of course, to receive his orders as the commander of Force One, America’s most secretive covert ops unit
His office actually
was
in the headquarters of the Paradigm Group, which – although purchased the year before merely as a front for Force One – was a genuine think-tank, staffed by many of the most capable minds in the business, none of whom had any idea what really went on there.
Cole remembered his first time at the White House; he’d crash-landed a hijacked C-130 military transport airplane on Constitution Avenue and had been dragged inside by the Secret Service’s Emergency Response Team. And within the next hour, he had saved the president from being assassinated by her own bodyguard.
With a wry smile, he realized that things never changed; people back then had had no idea who he really was, and they still didn’t.
To cover his shaven head – too many questions would be asked if he turned up to a meeting without hair – Cole was wearing a professional hair-piece, one that was itching constantly. Cole ignored the desire to scratch it, not wanting to bring undue attention on himself. He had had to use make-up to cover the bruises on his face, and hoped that it wasn’t too noticeable.
Force One itself was still something of an experiment, despite several months of successful operations. Previous covert ops units had been too well publicized – books had been written about the supposedly secret Intelligence Support Activity, for example, and Cole knew that it wouldn’t be long before his old unit, the Systems Research Group, received the same treatment.
Such public outings had ensured that such units were harder and harder to organize, often branded as being government ‘kill squads’. The disgraced ex-Director of National Intelligence, Charles Hansard, had therefore come up with a new system – take men and women who were ‘off the books’ ex-military personnel and use them as so-called ‘contract laborers’ with no connection back to the US government. Cole himself had been such an operative, until Hansard had turned rogue and tried to have him killed.
Cole recognized the two problems – an official group was too open to be truly effective, while a more independent operation was wide open for abuse. And this was where Force One came in, what Cole hoped would be a happy compromise between the two – an official group, but sanctioned only by a select few government insiders. The only people outside of Force One who knew of its existence were President Abrams, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Olsen, and the Director of National Intelligence, Catalina dos Santos. Olsen was able to mobilize military assets on Force One’s behalf, while dos Santos could provide intelligence from every US agency for the unit’s use. And although the president ultimately decided on how the unit was going to be used, all three had to approve its missions, in order to avoid the scandals that had followed Hansard’s use of his own private army.
Lieutenant General Miley Cooper, Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, also had a pretty good idea of what was going on due to the nature of his involvement as head of the special operations community, but he was not part of the ‘official’ group. He knew to authorize whatever Olsen requested, and was happy not knowing anything else; it was safer that way.
Briefings were given by the three people together, to make sure that one of them wasn’t going off solo, and the existence of the unit was enshrined in a secret presidential directive – the successors of Abrams, Olsen and dos Santos wouldn’t be able to disband it unless there was another presidential directive made to do so. They wouldn’t have to use the unit, but at least its existence was secure. In any case, it would be nearly four years until another election, and Cole was sure he’d be able to do some useful work in that time, no matter what happened next.
Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, Cole reflected as the polished mahogany door to the Oval Office was opened by a uniformed Marine, but it was definitely the best solution anyone had come up with so far.
Cole had handpicked a team that would stack up against anyone else in the world, he had full presidential approval, he had the backing of the military
and
the intelligence underworld, and to top it all off he had the combined benefits of government back-up with full anonymity.
Yes, Cole thought to himself as he entered the Oval Office, it just didn’t get any better than that.
‘So what’s the situation?’ Cole asked, accepting the coffee cup from the Navy steward with a nod of thanks.
They were in the president’s private study, the four of them occupying the easy chairs which had been crammed into the small space, a room off the short corridor that led to Abrams’ private dining room.
President Ellen Abrams waited until they were alone before she answered. ‘It’s not good, Mark. It’s not good at all.’
Cole wasn’t surprised; he wasn’t called in unless something was very badly wrong.
‘Thank you for your work with Haynes and the AU, by the way,’ Abrams said. ‘Noah tells me that the bureau will be able to wrap up the entire organization before Christmas.’ Noah Graham was the Director of the FBI, and the man directly responsible for countering homegrown terrorist groups such as the AU.
Cole nodded. ‘A nice present for someone.’
Abrams smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A very nice present indeed.’ She tapped a manila folder on the large desk between them. ‘But we now have something far more serious to deal with, I’m afraid.’
Cole knew the basic outline of the situation after reading the papers and magazines on the flight from Tucson, and in his experience such media outlets could often be more reliable than professional intelligence reports.
There had been some sort of coup in the People’s Republic of China, a general named Wu De was now proclaiming himself Paramount Leader, both Tsang Feng and Fang Zemin were presumed dead – probably by Wu’s own hand – and the entire Tsang government was now imprisoned in an unknown location while Wu’s own men took control of the country.
Cole had been horrified to find out what had been going on over the past couple of days; it was truly a nightmare scenario, made all the worse by what had happened in the East China Sea.
The
Gerald R. Ford
had been incapacitated by a missile strike from China, and was now listing, helpless, off her coastline. The papers had been unclear about rescue attempts.
‘What’s going on with the
Ford
?’ Cole asked.
Olsen shook his head sadly. He was a big man, cramped by the small room, and Cole felt sorry for him – as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he was directly responsible for the US military, which included the
Ford
. He knew the man would be dying to lash out and strike at something, but couldn’t; not yet anyway. The waiting must be killing him, Cole guessed, and the lines etched over Olsen’s craggy face just confirmed it.
‘Damage report isn’t promising,’ he said. ‘The missile did major damage to the rear portion of the ship, completely taking out the propellers. She can’t move, and she can’t fly her aircraft. Watertight compartments were sealed off immediately, but we’ve lost two hundred and fifty-six men and women – so far. Medical personnel are struggling to cope with the nearly six hundred other casualties that have resulted from the impact. Wu and the new Chinese government have refused to allow us to unload the casualties, so onboard medical personnel have to deal with the problem alone for now. And then there’s the desalination plant.’
Cole raised an eyebrow – as an ex-Navy SEAL, he knew about ships, and how important the desalination plant was, especially to one the size of the
Ford
. Without it, there would be no useable drinking water, a threat almost as serious as another hit by the
Dong Feng
.
‘The plant should be producing four hundred thousand gallons a day,’ Olsen said. ‘That’s what’s needed for a crew the size of the
Ford
’s. But it appears to have been damaged by the blast, and even with repairs is now incapable of treating more than fifty thousand gallons, eight times less than she needs. Captain Meadows has everyone rationed, showers are banned, they’re doing everything they can to conserve water, but – well, the bottom line is that things aren’t good.’
‘The members of the crew are hostages, in effect,’ Abrams said. ‘Wu denies that the missile was fired on purpose, claiming that it was a training error, and at the moment we can’t prove otherwise. But at the same time, Wu has issued notice that we are invading his territorial waters, and has told the rest of the
Ford
carrier group to back off, or else.’
Abrams sighed. ‘What can we do? The threat is clear – back off, or he kills the
Ford
for real, and we lose more than four thousand of our people; there’s no way we could get to it in time, repair it, offload the personnel, before he could blow it clean out of the water.’